What’s great about the following story is that it shows how diverse academic institutions can act together to achieve a common goal. In the end, when the need arises, differences are dropped and a rare unity can be achieved. If these same institutions collaborated this way on other issues, who knows, we could have an Israeli mission to Mars, if not farther away.
The only downside is that these exulted academic institutions are working in concert to decimate another academic institution, for its original sin of standing close to ten miles east of the “green line,” or the armistice line, where the Jordanian Legion and the IDF interrupted the hostilities in 1949.
Now the fight against the recognition of Ariel University Center as a full-fledged academic institution comes to the High Court: the Hebrew University, the Technion, Tel Aviv University, the Weizmann Institute, Bar Ilan University (way to go, frum brethren), Haifa University, Ben Gurion University and the Open University have filed a petition to nullify the decision to establish a university in Ariel.
The petition was filed against a long list of plaintiffs: the Council for Higher Education in Judea and Samaria, the IDF command in Judea and Samaria, the Israeli government, the Minister of Defense, Minister of Finance, Minister of Education, the Council for Higher Education (CHE), Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC) and the Ariel University Center in Samaria.
The petition claims that the decision to recognize the University Center as a university is rife with defects and exceeds the authority of the Council for Higher Education in Judea and Samaria. It also claims that the decision is “extremely unreasonable and unacceptable.”
But read the signs carried recently by left-wing Ariel haters, seen in the image above. They tell the real story, with messages like: “Ariel is not Israel,” “University for Occupation Sciences,” and “Don’t let the Settler’s State take over the State of Israel.”
According to the petitioners, there is no need to establish a Hebrew-speaking university in Judea and Samaria, since only 15% of the students are residents of the area.
Yes, it must be the Hebrew.
Just take a look at the number of universities in Judea and Samaria, and the list does not include colleges and other higher education institutions:
Arab American University
Al-Quds Open University
Al-Quds University
An-Najah National University
Bethlehem University
Birzeit University
Hebron University
Palestine Polytechnic University
Al Ahlia University of Palestine
Have you heard anything said, ever, about the legitimacy of these institutions? Do you know why? Because they don’t teach in Hebrew. It’s the Hebrew thing, every time.
If only the founders of that hated institution had the sense to call it Arial Madrassa…